This WeekAs we're coming up on National Library Week, the sites I selected for the newsletter are about books, libraries, bookmarks, books as art, books in art, and reading, plus a couple others I just really liked. Bon appetit from librarians Wendy, Maria, Charlotte, and Jennifer.

Tip of the WeekWhat else went into the database this week? More than two dozen other sites, including NATO turning 60, the periodic table on video, North Korea, transparency in monetary policy, adult fitness, co-sleeping, and the goodness of fruits and veggies.

The Atlas of Early Printing
"This site depicts the spread of printing through Europe in the fifty years following the European refinement of the tools and process to make impressions from movable type cast in metal." View a map of Europe by year (1450-1500) to see locations of the spread of printing, universities, paper mills, fairs, and trade routes. Also includes material about 15th-century printing and an animated model of a printing press. From the University of Iowa Libraries.
URL: http://atlas.lib.uiowa.edu/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/25476

Mirage Bookmarks
Website about bookmarks. Features an exhibit of "outstanding bookmarks from 1850s up to now with over 150 images" (with topics such as Victorian, bookstores, religious, heroes, handmade, museum, and French advertising), history of bookmarks, bookmark quotes, and related material on interesting bookstores, libraries, and other topics. From a Swiss company that sells metal bookmarks.
URL: http://www.miragebookmark.ch/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/25305

Tenement Museum
Website for this New York City Museum "that tells the stories of immigrants who lived in 97 Orchard Street, a tenement built in 1863 on Manhattan's Lower East Side." The "History" section includes a list of the thousands of residents of lived in the building over the years and describes changes in building toilets, light, water, and heating. Also includes a virtual tour, 1916 immigration simulation game, and lesson plans.
URL: http://www.tenement.org/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/28135

TypeBound
Companion to an exhibition that "includes a wide range of works from sculptures that reference books to books that reference movement and shape beyond the bound page," and typewriter poetry, "an important variant of visual poetry." Includes introductory essay, which considers "what is a book?", images of selected books sculptures, description of how to make a typewriter poem, and typewriter poem examples. From the University of Central Florida Art Gallery.
URL: http://www.readies.org/typebound/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/27901

Blogging@NYPL
Blog for the New York Public Library (NYPL) covering a wide range of topics such as National Poetry Month (April), dandies, author Flannery O'Conner, feminism, changing styles in children's literature, noteworthy American Irish women writers, the menu collection database, the NYPL during the Great Depression and today's economic crisis, the Reader's Den (online book club), and much more.
URL: http://nypl.org/blog
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/27535

I Love Libraries
This initiative of the American Library Association (ALA) is "designed to keep America informed about what's happening in today's libraries, found in public, school, academic, corporate and institutional settings."
Includes material about challenges for public libraries in difficult economic times, suggestions for you to take action to support libraries, information for locating public libraries, an "ask the librarian" feature, material for National Library Week (mid-April), and related material.
URL: http://www.ilovelibraries.org/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/28170